I was just saying that it was a marvel of the modern capitalist system

[james_davis_nicoll]

that I automatically assume all statements from companies are misleading or outright lies unless I can prove otherwise. This covers a lot of educational programs: Phil Plait cheerfully pushed utter rot on people when he was on TV.

Wil Wheaton just discovered Discovery is owned by a profit-oriented entity.

(I am not making fun of him. I was very peeved over the crap physics on Plait's show)

Comments

[egret]

I don't have cable TV anymore, but I seem to remember that Discovery had been showing a lot of those "Discovery of Noah's Ark" and "Sasquatch Sightings" shows, so I didn't see the fake!shark show as that much of a stretch. I was kind of surprised to see such outrage from Wheaton who I would have thought would have known a lot about how the TV sausage is made.

Some years back someone wrote an influential article about how animal documentaries are filmed and staged in general (spoiler: animal welfare not the main priority!) and I am wondering now if anyone has written about the filming of the shark specials.